ABSTRACT

Questions about the meaning and value of sports are related to questions about the meaning of life, the concept of meaningful action, and whether our lives and projects are worthwhile. First, the discussion attempts to clarify the question “Do sports matter?” by considering unusual examples that occasion questions about futility and worthwhileness. But what do these bizarre examples have to do with sports? Skylar wonders whether sports are pointless, while Logan insists that actions in sports are paradigm examples of purposiveness. They have two very different perspectives on sport: one a detached, external viewpoint, the other an internal, engaged point of view. The participants discuss the classic representation of drudgery and pointlessness in the myth of Sisyphus; however, Pat argues that our life

is not at all like Sisyphus’s meaningless toil. More importantly, Sisyphus has the possibility of creating meaning for himself by constructing a game. Pat argues that sport invents meaning, but it is also a realm of paradox because the meaning arises in a nonserious world of play, as Skylar insists. Parts of the discussion harken back to “Dialogue Two,” in which the participants examined Bernard Suits’s account of game playing and Huizinga’s analysis of play. Pat claims that the meaning of sport is related to the narrative structuring of experience, and the values associated with being a member of a community are also significant. Finally, the characters discuss various metaphors that are used to understand the nature, meaning, and value of sports.